Twelve Failures
by Hardcore Heathen
Summary: A series of different characters and how they failed twelve times, shaping the world around them.
1. Iruka

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

**Twelve Failures of Umino Iruka**

1. The first failure of Umino Iruka's life was the day of the Kyuubi attack. He just _knows_ that he could have saved his parents. Somehow. Some way.

2. Later he failed the exam to become a teacher of the ninja arts. The exam was based on individual merit, and the only reason he survived a basic trap was because Mizuki saved him.

Iruka never realized that Mizuki only saved him to look good in front of the observers. Three days prior the investigation had begun into the true cause of death of Mizuki's teammate during an escape from enemy forces. Mizuki had killed the hamstrung man to speed up his own flight, but claimed the severe leg injury had necessitated the move. A basic autopsy reveals that the cut barely severed the tendons in the leg, and a basic healing technique would have saved the man's life. Any chunin could have done it.

3. His third failure was the day one Uzumaki Naruto, known in hushed whispers as the Kyuubi, walked into his class. Iruka failed to see him as Naruto. Iruka will never admit that instead of teaching Naruto the seal for Bunshin no Jutsu, he taught him a seal to channel chakra into another person.

Forcing an Academy technique with it would have instantly drained anyone else Naruto's age of every last drop of chakra, killing them. Naruto survived by putting so much raw chakra in the air that he could use _that_ to perform techniques. The use of such overwhelming, raw power, untamed once released from his body, prevents Naruto from ever properly performing Bunshin no Jutsu.

4. Despite the fact that he _knows_ Naruto grew up alone, that he can _see_ that Naruto is in the _exact same pain_ that he felt when he was a child, Iruka fails to help. He turns a blind eye and looks the other way. The Kyuubi took his parents. It deserves the same pain he felt.

5. Despite years of ninja training, Iruka still fails the first time he attempts an assassination. When Iruka treats Naruto to Ichiraku Ramen for the first time, he subtly pours a small paper container of a poisonous salt into Naruto's bowl as the boy closes his eyes to yell "Itadakimasu!"

Naruto devoured the entire bowl, and asked if Iruka would buy another.

6. Seated atop the head of the Fourth, the great shinobi who defeated the boy before him, Iruka tells Naruto that he can't go home until he finishes cleaning the Hokage monument. He fails to maintain his cold, quiet hate when Naruto says eleven fateful words.

"So? It's not like there's anyone at home waiting for me."

The sheer, naked, _hurt _in Naruto's voice forces Iruka to admit that Naruto is in pain. That he knows suffering, and that there is nothing he wants more in the world than for there to be someone at home, waiting for him. For the first time Iruka's offer of ramen is genuine.

7. Later at Ichiraku's, Iruka realizes that he failed to know Naruto at all. Naruto reveres the Fourth Hokage, the man who defeated the Kyuubi and saved the village. It is at that moment that he realizes - Naruto is not the Kyuubi. And he was wrong.

Every single moment of Naruto's blundering determination, despite every single person, including his sensei, standing in the way of him, is instantly viewed in a new light when Naruto says another eleven life-altering words.

"I'm going to be greater than every single Hokage before me!"

The demon, no, the _boy_, Uzumaki Naruto, wants to lead the village that sealed a demon inside him, that hated him, that tried to kill him. More importantly, he wants to protect it, and every single person inside it. Iruka sits in awe, chopsticks halfway to his mouth, as he realizes that the person he has hated for twelve years is a greater person than he could ever hope to be.

9. Exactly twenty-four hours later, sitting down against a tree, spitting up blood, one hand on a small wooden log that he'd fooled Mizuki into thinking was the Scroll of Sealing, Iruka realizes that he has failed again, this time to protect Naruto. Ironic that he spent half his life trying to kill the boy, only to die trying to save him. Iruka believes it will be the last failure of his life.

When Naruto appears from nowhere, striking Mizuki hard enough to knock the man back twenty feet and deflecting the second Fuma shuriken, Iruka's jaw drops as he watches Naruto create almost a thousand shadow clones. The Yondaime in his prime would have died at eight hundred. It is at this moment that he realizes just how badly he has held back Naruto, just how much he has kept this boy from his one dream.

10. He tries to make it up to himself and Naruto by giving the boy the hitai-ate he'd asked for yesterday, declaring him a graduate. It fails to salve his conscience.

11. Sadly, Iruka fails to muster up the courage to ever admit what he's done to Naruto and ask his forgiveness.

12. But, most important of all, he fails to realize that Naruto isn't stupid. The fact that the boy mastered tree walking in a day, equalling the Uchiha prodigy who started out far ahead of him, is proof enough of that.

There is a reason Naruto avoids the first person to ever acknowledge his existence as much as possible. Naruto figured it out.

**Author's Notes:**

After reading Twenty Matters of Pride by Kraken's Ghost and Five Reasons by eminyet I wanted to give this style a spin. Next chapter will be Kakashi, although I'm not sure when I'll write it. This series is mostly for my own entertainment, so new characters after Kakashi might be late in coming. My overall plan is to use twelve characters total, in keeping with the general theme of twelve.


	2. Kakashi

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

**Twelve Failures of Hatake Kakashi**

1. When Kakashi was seven his father, Konoha's White Fang, committed seppuku with only his young son as a witness. Being told to hold the sword that had given his father the name White Fang above the man's head in case he should dishonor himself by showing pain as he disemboweled himself is a symbol of the greatest trust his father could ever place in him. It was also the hardest thing Kakashi has ever had to do, but his hands didn't waver.

Unfortunately, Kakashi listened to his father's comrades after the event, the ones he'd sacrificed his mission to save. They speak derisively of the weak man who abandoned the good of the village to save them, how his shame led to his eventual suicide. The White Fang should have left them to die, should have completed the mission they had been assigned. Kakashi fails to realize that they're wrong. That those who abandon the rules are trash, but those abandon their comrades are worse than trash. A rather (in Kakashi's mind) foolish and whiny child, later assigned to his team, knows this instinctively. Kakashi is convinced that Uchiha Obito is the greatest fool he has ever met. He is also disdainful of the female member of his team, Rin, who appears to have a major crush on him. He believes her a weakling more obsessed with love than the proper arts of a shinobi.

2. Despite being a shinobi genius, Kakashi fails to see an inherent flaw in the only technique he has ever created. Refusing to admit that anything he himself has created is a failure by its very nature, Kakashi attempts to use Chidori on an enemy Iwa nin. He never hits the man, and only the timely intervention of his sensei saves his teammate, Obito's, life. Minato forbids Kakashi from ever using the technique again, as the rapid movement required for the technique has him move too quickly to see any counterattack the enemy prepares.

3. In his blind, cold, utterly rational obsession with the rules of proper shinobi conduct Kakashi fails to immediately going after Rin when she is captured by an Iwa nin. Obito calls him worse than trash and goes after the girl medic. After several minutes Kakashi follows after, forced to admit he cannot sabotage the bridge by himself.

Only when he sees a distorted patch of tree and realizes that it is an Iwa nin about to kill Obito does he throw aside the rules and rush in headlong, losing an eye but temporarily averting a blow that would have killed Obito. In his desperation to save the both of them, Obito awakens his Sharingan and kills the nearly-invisible Iwa nin. Had Kakashi and Obito arrived at the same time, Kakashi would not have had to lose an eye to save Obito.

The blood loss from the eye slows him down enough that there is no way Kakashi can escape the landslide the final Iwa nin triggered after Kakashi and Obito had rescued Rin. Seeing his onrushing death by boulder, Kakashi can only stare. Obito selflessly runs back and throws Kakashi out of the way, and is crushed as a result. As his dying wish, he gives Kakashi his Sharingan eye.

4. When Iwa reinforcements show up, Kakashi fails to defend Rin from them. He throws a kunai, a gift from his sensei, at them before passing out. The Yondaime, who had placed a Hiraishin seal upon the kunai, immediately appears on the scene and shows the Iwa forces just why there is a "flee on sight" order attached to his entry in the Bingo Book. Rin survives, but barely.

5. Three days later, Kakashi's Sharingan shows him exactly the correct path to dodge the volley of kunai thrown at him by Iwa forces. Inexperienced with the new bloodline limit, he fails to remember that Rin was standing behind him, back to back. Her medical skills are nowhere near sufficient to save herself from the half dozen fatal puncture wounds, and it is only the intervention of the Yondaime yet again that saves Kakashi himself from following the girl to the grave.

6. When giving genin-hopefuls their true exam, Kakashi makes teamwork the focus. Not just because Obito stressed sticking together, but because he, a loner, failed to work with his other teammate, causing her death. He gives each and every one of them a failing grade, until the day the team he is testing contains Uchiha Sasuke, Obito's nephew. Compelled to do whatever he can to honor whatever fragment of Obito's memory that he can find, he constantly drops hints and gives the team endless second chances until he is eventually forced to tell them point blank that the point of the exercise is teamwork. The once cold-hearted shinobi failed to maintain his rationality and give the team a fair test.

7. Despite the fact that a blind man could see that Sasuke was nothing like Obito, Kakashi still favors him over the other two members of his team as a physical memory of the boy who became his best friend only after he was already gone. He failed to realize that, if he were to compare Sasuke to the members of the old Team Seven, Sasuke would not be the selfless Obito. He would be the cold-hearted, stubborn, arrogant genius, Kakashi.

8. He fails to realize that the true heir to Obito's legacy is Naruto, the boy who freezes at his first sign of real combat, the selfless boy who constantly seeks the approval of others, and the one who charged recklessly at an enemy more powerful than he could truly comprehend. Kakashi is convinced that Uzumaki Naruto is the greatest fool he has ever met.

9. He also fails to realize just how much Sakura is like Rin. She has amazing chakra control, practically limitless potential as a medic, a good understanding of genjutsu, but has a hopeless crush on the dark male figure of her team, completely ignoring the more outgoing boy who actively seeks her attention. He believes her a weakling obsessed with love instead of the proper arts of a shinobi.

10. When Naruto, slated to fight against the greatest genin of Konoha, Hyuuga Neji, asks Kakashi for help, Kakashi fails to be a real sensei, as always. Kakashi blows him off in favor of Obito's nephew.

11. Despite the fact that he _knows_ that the one thing Naruto has sought his entire life is acknowledgement, Kakashi fails to ever congratulate the boy on anything he has ever done. Even defeating the genius Hyuuga prodigy, performing an S-Rank Summon, defeating one of the bijuu, and equalling the last Uchiha, is not enough for Kakashi to regard Naruto as more than what Sasuke called him: the dead last. Even after Naruto gives his all, even after he takes an arm through the chest, even after he goes through Hell to try and bring the other boy back, Kakashi still regards Naruto as the lesser of the two for failing. Despite the fact that Naruto pulled his final blow, merely scratching Sasuke's hitai-ate instead of destroying the boy with the Rasengan.

12. After waking up and realizing that he has failed, Naruto is inconsolable for days. Kakashi doesn't try; he is too busy mourning his failure to Obito's memory. He never realizes that he has indeed failed Obito's memory, not by not being there enough for Sasuke, but by not being there enough for Naruto.

**Author's Notes:**

Yes, I purposely used the _exact same phrase_ to describe Kakashi's initial impressions of Obito-Naruto and Rin-Sakura, to emphasize just how blind the man with the all-seeing eye is. Obito isn't really Sasuke's uncle. There is no actual information on the death of Rin, or even precise confirmation that she is dead, beyond Kakashi saying that everyone precious to him is dead. Next character in the series...dunno. And it'll be awhile until I get around to writing the next character, as I'm trying to keep up with weekly updates for my other story, Overlay.


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